You Can Dance If You Want To…

They say that familiarity breeds contempt and when it comes to Dickcissels, I’m afraid that’s the case for me. If you’re in the appropriate habitat at the right time of the year, they’re all over the place, singing out in the open and generally not shy or flighty. I have so many Dickcissel photos that I rarely shoot them anymore.

But earlier this week, on a county road between Koshkonong and Grand Gulf State Park, I found this pair of birds. The male seemed to be a little, um, amorous, so I shot a couple of frames and waited to see what would happen.

He couldn’t contain himself for long, breaking out the dance moves to impress the lady. Back and forth across the wire he went, hopping, jumping and flapping his wings.

The shot above is my favorite. You have the leg kick and jazz hands, what more could you ask for.

I can’t say for sure if he was successful in his wooing, but they did fly off together. I like to think she was quite taken with him. How can a gal resist a fella with moves like that? He clearly had boogie in his soul.

Sorry for the poor quality photos. There was a heavy overcast and occasional light rain falling, so conditions for photography were less that optimum. I was shooting out the truck window, handheld at 1/500th of a second which meant that any movement resulted in a blurred image.

But they’re good enough to illustrate what I was trying to show and a couple of them aren’t bad. As always, you work with the conditions that you’re dealt.